


Best Friend Material

by debilitas



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Minor canon divergence, Post Game, References to Depression, Trans Chris, equal parts plot and porn, sole survivor chris and mike, you'd think id be better at tags by now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 16:15:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7179590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debilitas/pseuds/debilitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike Munroe wasn't exactly best friend material. His aversion to commitment carried over to his platonic relationships and his worst qualities had survived Mount Blackwood, even if some of his fingers hadn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friend Material

**Author's Note:**

> honestly, when i started this fic i intended to post it on christmas, which is why it has some holiday themes. it's the longest thing ive ever written and is the reason [SNSS](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5105864/chapters/11745743) remains unfinished.  
> this is, too, and im not sure if it'll ever be finished, but i'll post chapters until i run out because i _really_ dont want 23 pages of writing to go to waste  
>  i honestly prefer this pairing over any other ud ship which is why i went...overboard and wrote so much  
> there's a few things that aren't canon-compliant (for example, chris finds ashley's beanie but survives) but nothing too major  
> this fic also contains things like depression and some not very responsible consumption of alcohol, one later chapter in particular, but my usual style of sarcastic narration keeps from being too serious. just something to keep in mind, if you're sensitive to that kind of thing.  
> [my tumblr](http://www.weltigo.tumblr.com)

Chris was depressed.

He didn't need a therapist of Zoloft prescription to know he was depressed. When it comes to depression, dead friends can be quite an obvious cause. 

It'd been almost two months since Blackwood: long enough for anyone not directly involved to be interested, but not long enough for him to forget anything he'd witnessed. 

They'd found Josh's body in the mines—minus an intact skull—and Matt's dangling from hooks. Sam's charred body was found in the remnants of the lodge. All closed casket. Nobody found Jessica, Emily, or Ashley's bodies. Empty caskets. At first, a cop told Chris not to lose hope because they technically had no proof that his almost-girlfriend had died as he promptly took her beanie away, but his voice was unconvincing. 

With the exception of himself and Mike, every one of his friends was dead or presumed to be. Mike hadn't spoken to him besides a quick exchange in the helicopter ride away from the lodge, and Chris didn't have anything to say. 

He did want to beat the shit out of him for not saving Josh, but still didn't have anything to actually _say_ when he was done with the beating. 

Chris shuffled out of his room for the first time in a few days, motivated only by his hunger, wearing sweatpants that were in desperate need of a wash and a hoodie that had once belonged to Josh, signature Nike checkmark faded from age. He'd found the article balled up in Josh's laundry basket by itself, and while it bore a mayonnaise—or maybe semen, Josh was a weird guys—stain and he wasn't in the habit of taking dead people's clothes, it was the only thing big enough to fit him. It hadn't been washed, either. If Chris pressed his nose just right against the sleeve (no homo), he could still catch his best friend's scent. 

He found a plastic bowl filled with peppermint and chocolate candy on the coffee table on the way to the kitchen, clumsily pulling the wrapper off of one and chewing slowly. He glanced back down at the wrapper, littered in cartoon drawings of evergreen trees. 

Oh yeah, Christmas. That was coming up. It wasn't that big of a deal in his household, but it was a week-long affair for the Washingtons. If he hadn't gone off the deep end and died, Josh would have already called him up to make plans. 

Chris scolded himself for already thinking about Josh twice since waking up, at the modest hour of 5pm no less, as he discarded the candy wrapper and headed toward the freezer. He picked a microwavable Chinese dinner over pizza: if he gave himself one more reason to think about Josh he'd have to give up on eating (again) and go back to bed. 

Still, it was easier to think about him than Ashley. In the space of one night Chris had picked her over his best friend, confessed that she was in fact his crush, tried to shoot himself to save said crush, kissed her, celebrated his first kiss with a shotgun and watching a complete stranger have his head removed, then found her hat just by a trapdoor that screamed _do not open me unless you want to die_. 

When he thought about the rest of the group's fate, he could blame Josh. When he thought about what happened to Ashley, he could only blame himself. 

The microwave's obnoxious ding brought him out of his pity-fueled daze. 

"Be quiet," he started to say to the microwave, until he realized that he was purposefully speaking to an inanimate object. Maybe craziness was contagious, and he'd caught it back at the mountain. 

Chris was biting down onto a spoonful of rice when he heard Josh's voice. 

The spoon clattered to the table as he dashed out of the kitchen, desperately looking around the living room to find...nothing. Josh's voice was muffled, sounding faintly like he was singing. 

Okay, maybe he was going crazy. 

Josh's voice abruptly stopped, only to be followed by Chris' own voice. 

He was definitely going crazy. 

" _You've reached Chris. Leave a message_." 

Oh. His phone had been ringing. Josh must've snagged his phone at some point and changed his ringtone. Typical Josh. Typical, now dead Josh. 

Chris found his cell phone stuck underneath one of the couch cushions, displaying a missed call from an unfamiliar number. He dismissed the notification, pocketing the device just as the nearby house phone chimed, making him seriously wonder if he was in the first few minutes of a horror movie. 

Before he could croak out a greeting, a familiar voice said: "Dude. What does your house look like?" 

He stared at the wall, mouth agape in disbelief. "Is this gonna be like _Scream_ but with houses instead of movies?" 

"It's Mike, jackass." 

"Oh. Wait, what?" So, he wasn't in a horror movie, but one of them was definitely going crazy, because Mike never called him. Even before everyone they knew and loved died. 

"I need milk. Do you have milk?" 

"Uhh…" Chris fumbled back into the kitchen to peek into the refrigerator to find a carton of soy milk positioned behind a bottle of orange juice. Mike struck him as the type of person that thought non-living things could be gay, and soy milk was probably at the top of the Gay Foods list, but he was lonely. "Yeah. And my house is the white one with the ugly yellow shutters." Gay milk or not, Mike was still the closest thing he had to a friend nowadays. 

"What do you mean by ugly—" There was a long pause. "Oh." Mike hung up abruptly enough to make Chris question whether or not the call had even occurred until there was a loud knocking at his front door. Grabbing his forgotten dinner, he went to answer it. 

Mike stood in his doorway, wearing a wide-brimmed fedora and polo, holding a bowl of cereal. 

"I need milk." he repeated. 

Chris looked Mike up and down. From his name brand shirt and clearly expensive shoes, he wasn't exactly the type of person to be lacking anything, especially food. 

"So you brought a full bowl of cereal to my house? Don't you live like, an hour away?" 

"I got an apartment. It's closer. Now can I come in?" 

Chris stepped aside, Mike briefly turning the wrong direction before taking an awkward left toward the kitchen. 

"You got an apartment?" 

"Yeah, with the 'reparations' from Josh's dad. Didn't you get any? ...Sweet, you got soy milk," 

After they found out just how much 'pain and suffering' their son had caused, the Washingtons had given the Munroe family a hefty sum of cash. But, they evidently deemed that Chris had been too close to Josh to be too negatively affected by his actions, because he didn't receive a dime. He also didn't lose any appendages. 

"No." He watched with a frown as Mike took a swig directly from the carton before pouring some into his bowl. "How's life with eight fingers?" 

"Not too bad. My handwriting is fucked, though. Got some sick scars; wanna see?" Chris grunted past his food as Mike moved to unravel his bandages. "Nope. I'm good." 

"Suit yourself." He expertly balanced the bowl on his left hand, shoveling large spoonfuls of sugary cereal into his mouth with the right. "How's your...life?" 

"Been better." The two boys fell into silence, accompanied only by the sound of their utensils clinking against their bowls. Chris finished his meal first, placing his bowl in the sink before returning to the living room. He scrubbed the back of his neck, shooting a glance toward the DVD player positioned in front of the television. 

"You like movies?" 

"Are you asking me to Netflix and Chill?" The other boy loudly slurped the remaining milk from his bowl. 

"Forget it—" 

"I was just kidding, man. Yeah, I like movies." Mike placed the porcelain onto the counter as he joined Chris in the living room, jumping directly onto the sofa and kicking his feet up. "What've you got?" 

"My mom's got everything Brad Pitt's ever been in, if you're into that," The pair ultimately decided on _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_ , Mike often going into tangents about how attractive Angelina Jolie was while making incredibly suggestive gestures. He even managed to make Chris laugh a few times; something he hadn't done in a long time. 

After the film's credits finished rolling, Chris returned to regular television, where they watched poorly made shows about people's supposed encounters with ghosts, cracking jokes about the overacting and repeating the worst of the dialogue. 

Mike eventually dozed off, hat tipped down over his face. Chris left him there, curling up in the nearby armchair himself and drifting off. 

* * *

Chris woke up to screaming. Not the exaggerated screaming from the TV shows or porno that he could no longer watch, (thanks, Zoloft), no, this was an expression of pure terror that made his ears ring. 

Chris crawled out of the armchair toward Mike, who was thrashing around violently on the couch, clawing at his shirt. 

"Fuck, fuck, no no no stop," 

"Mike, dude," Chris tugged the brunette's hands away from his own throat. "Mike!" 

"GET OFF OF ME!" he immediately released his grip, taking a cautious step backward. 

"JESSICA!" 

With a sharp gasp, Mike was awake. His chest heaved as he stared back up at Chris in the weak light, eyes wide with fear. 

"What…" he paused, inhaling. "Just happened?" 

"You were screaming," Chris prompted, pushing his glasses up his nose. "You said something about Jessica," 

"Jess. Fuck." Mike cupped his face with his hands, aggressively rubbing at his eyelids. 

"You wanna explain what just happened or are we gonna ignore it?" 

"Nightmare. You ever get them?" 

"Yeah." Chris spent the majority of his daily life sleeping; he was uncomfortably familiar with nightmares. Most involved him being knee-deep in a foreign inky substance, trudging after Ashley, who was always just out of his reach, but the worst featured the wendigo, tearing his flesh off agonizingly slow, blood pooling everywhere but death evading him. 

"You wanna talk about it?" 

"No thanks, Dr. Chris. I'm fine." 

* * *

A week after Mike showed up with his bowl of cereal, he called Chris at seven in the morning. 

Chris, who hadn't woken up at any time before noon for the past month, was quite annoyed to be disturbed by his phone ringing and an entirely too cheery-sounding Mike at the other end. 

"Is your house white or blue?" 

"Weren't you here last week?" 

"White or blue, Christopher." 

Chris groaned into the receiver, pulling a blanket over his head. "White. Can I go back to sleep now?" 

"No. I'm in your driveway." To emphasize his point, Mike blared his car's horn. "Get dressed." 

With fifteen minutes of convincing Chris dragged himself out of bed, putting on his glasses and stepping into the nearest pair of shoes, his mom's pink winter boots—they were comfortable, shut up—and fumbling toward the front door. He heard the door to his mother's room open, but she said nothing. She was glad to see her son leaving his room. 

Even if he was leaving his room in a pair of baby blue pajama pants covered in a cutesy design of snowmen. 

Chris ran directly to Mike's car upon discovering just how cold it was outside, throwing open the passenger's side door and hopping in, wincing at the feel of the leather. Of course he had leather seats; his car probably cost more than Chris' house. 

"Nice outfit," Mike mused, starting up the car. 

"What do you want, man?" 

"Company. I'm getting a new phone and I figured you were the guy to ask when it comes to that stuff," 

"And you couldn't just _call_?" Chris grimaced as they pulled out of his driveway. For almost two months he'd only ever left the confines of his home to attend funerals, and he seriously did not want to break that cycle while in his pajamas. 

"I did call. That's how I got you out here." Mike slid a pair of sunglasses onto his nose with a free hand, the lenses dark and frames extremely large, presumably to hide the bags that had taken residency underneath his eyes. 

"It's cold, Mike. I don't want to go cell phone shopping." 

"There's a jacket in the backseat," He ended the conversation by turning on the radio, blasting the latest pop song and humming along in lieu of singing. 

Sure enough, Chris found a navy blue pullover in the backseat, awkwardly tugging it over his oversized t-shirt. It clung to his belly so much it didn't come down to his waist, sleeves cascading over his knuckles, clearly bought for a person of a drastically different sized person. 

"I look weird." He declared, crossing his arms and haughtily looking out the window. 

Mike refused to give into his pouting, increasing the volume of the radio to an obnoxious level, singing along just as loud, voice off-key and skimming over the lyrics he couldn't predict, but still enthusiastic as ever. 

Chris found it hard to remain grumpy with Mike screaming his way through songs for and about teenaged girls' unrequited love, eventually tapping his foot along with the beat and even considering singing along just as they pulled into the parking lot of the local mall. 

After spending over an hour in the Apple store and an unreasonable amount of time deciding on what phone case was the most sexy (Chris countered this with the philosophical question of how an inanimate object could be sexy), Mike paid for expensive coffee that was more whipped cream than beverage and thankfully let them drink in the car to spare Chris of any more embarrassment over his clothing. 

It was a good day in spite of the ill-fitting pajamas. Since the mountain, good days were next to nonexistent, but Chris remained pessimistic, convinced that it was an isolated incident that would be quickly forgotten by both of them. 

Mike showed up in his driveway the next day, the day after that, and every day for the rest of the week. Sometimes they'd have spontaneous romps to the mall or grocery store for snack binges, but most of the time they resigned themselves to sitting in Chris' room with the lights off and watching copious amounts of daytime television. Their schedules were free with the absence of schooling: they'd dropped out after everything had happened. Their parents didn't expect much from them, what with the dead friends and all. 

On the first Sunday, Chris spent the night at Mike's apartment, where they proceeded to get blackout drunk and reminisce about anything before or during the incident at Blackwood. Mike had been mumbling something about a wolf that he'd befriended before slipping into unconsciousness, head lulling over onto Chris' shoulder. 

Chris woke up face-down on the carpet, Mike's bare legs intertwined with his clothed ones, a steady stream of drool coming from his mouth. He didn't look deliriously happy or peaceful, instead much older than his nineteen years. A deep but healing cut decorated his throat, and the bags underneath his dark eyes looking worse rather than better. 

Maybe Mike's joyful act was just that: an act. Instead of sleeping the days away as Chris had, he coped by pretending that he didn't have anything to cope about. 

Chris knew that if just one more person had survived, he and Mike would have no chance of being friends. They were companions of circumstance, brought together by tragedy. But he'd be damned if he'd lose Mike now. 

Chris scooted closer, a single hand hovering over Mike's sharp cheekbone. At this distance, he could see a series of subtle scars across his face, even what seemed to be the remains of burns. Under the touch, his nose wrinkled. It was almost cute. Mike Munroe wasn't exactly best friend material. His aversion to commitment carried over to his platonic relationships and his worst qualities had survived Mount Blackwood even if some of his fingers hadn't. 

But Chris wasn't picky. When the rest of your friends were dead or presumed to be, you didn't get to be picky.


End file.
